Identifying Racism Throughout U.S. History

Color line

Refers to segregation between White and Black people in the United States.

Double consciousness

Describes an individual whose identity is split into two parts - one around Black people and one around White people.

Systemic racism

The deeply rooted, institutionalized racial oppression that gives the dominant group power over individuals of color.

Scientific racism

The use of pseudoscience to 'prove' the innate racial inferiority of some and the superiority of other racial groups.

Cumulative disadvantage

Inequities and negative consequences of those inequities throughout an individual's life.

Articles of Confederation

The first constitution of the United States.

W. E. B. Du Bois

A prominent Black sociologist whose work advocating for Black Americans was not given the credit it deserved.

Advocacy

The employment of resources to empower communities.

Sociological imagination

The ability to view personal experiences and lives within a broader social context.

Institutional level

Refers to policies, laws, and institutions that produce and reproduce racial inequities.

Individual level

one person discriminates against another person based on race and/or ethnicity

a.   Examples include telling racist jokes and microaggressions

Racism and Genocide Against American Indians

i. White colonists used ideas of racial inferiority to justify their treatment of Native American bodies, culture, and land, shifting them further West, away from fertile land.

ii. This removal of American Indians from their land occurred from the colonial era through the urbanization movement in the 1950s.

Asians and Racism in the United States

i. Asians first came to the U.S. in the 1850s and faced prejudice and discrimination by Whites who saw them as “yellow peril” and a threat to their jobs

European Ethnic Groups Who Eventually “Became” White

i. Not all ethnic Europeans were considered White

a.   Racially “superior” people were from western and northern Europe

Latinx Experience with Racism in the United States

i. Latinx’s dealings with racism began in 1848, the year of the Mexican-American War

ii. Increase in Mexican Americans in the U.S. after the war, leading to negative stereotypes and discrimination

Henrietta Lacks

 Her unique cancer cells were sampled and harvested without consent and marveled medical scientists who began to use these HeLa cells for research purposes.

Tuskegee Experiment

From 1932 to 1972 600 men participated in a study with syphilis, which led to 200 men never receiving treatment due to the desire of professionals to observe the natural course of untreated syphilis

Social policy

the implementation of a course of action through a formal program or law